I really, really am
by Xinette
Summary: Prussia sighed. "Do I need to spell it out for you?" France nodded. "I have a crush." France sighed and leaned dramatically against the conference table, wishing desperately that he was back in the era when alcohol was a common fixture in meeting rooms. Oneshot. PruCan. Asexual Prussia. My contribution for Acetalia Week 2019.


**A/N**: So this ended up a bit longer and more serious (and also funnier, somehow?) than I originally planned. I was inspired by Day 1's theme, Friends/Family, but I happened to be camping that day and very far away from an internet connection, so I'm publishing this for today, Day 7, free day.

Thanks to APHTevana for beta-reading.

"I really, really am"

France walked out of a meeting with his boss to see Prussia lying down on the couch outside of his office. It was an antique, and France cringed at the sight of Prussia's dirty shoes resting on the floral fabric.

"What is it this time?" France asked. He turned to his boss and mouthed _Prussia_. The President nodded, and left through an adjacent hallway.

"Oh, you know," Prussia said, demur, which convinced France that, whatever it was, it was serious. Prussia was never demur.

France nodded. He reached out with one hand and, lifting Prussia up with it, led him into a side conference room. The blinds were drawn, and there was nothing on the walls. "What is it?" He asked again, closing the door behind him with a click.

"I need advice," Prussia said, flopping into one of the padded chairs that sat around the table.

"On what?"

"I—I—_feelings_," Prussia said, leaning forward.

"What?"

"I've caught the feelings."

"The Recession?" France asked. There wasn't a recession, yet, but the Germans did tend to be funny about these things. And everyone said there was going to be one soon. France was getting sick of hearing about such-and-such economic factor and was just a bit nostalgic for the times when the sickness would just _hit_. None of this advisors taking his temperature and looking down his throat every day.

Prussia sighed. "No. Do I need to spell it out for you?"

France nodded. Prussia did not tend to be particularly good at subtly, either.

"I have a crush."

France sighed and leaned dramatically against the conference table, wishing desperately that he was back in the era when alcohol was a common fixture in meeting rooms. "Who is the unlucky one?"

Prussia bit his lip and shifted his weight. The chair creaked underneath him. "Canada."

"Canada—my former colony, Canada?"

Prussia nodded, his lip still twisted around his teeth.

"Oh, well, that won't do," France said. "Canada doesn't date people."

Prussia furrowed his white eyebrows. "You don't know that," he said. "I mean, you lost him to Britain. And, I mean, he's a free, sovereign country now. You can't control him."

France sighed. "That's not what I meant—"

"Then what? You're just looking out for him? He doesn't have to listen to that, either," Prussia stood up. The chair fell down behind him. "I came to you because I thought you'd be impartial but if your former connection to Canada is all you want to talk about …" he sighed and left the room, slamming the door behind him in a dramatic flash.

"Prussia—" France said, stepping towards the exit. He opened the door and peaked his head out, but Prussia was nowhere to be seen.

Sighing, France closed the door and set the chair right again.

###

Austria was practicing the piano when Prussia burst into the room and flopped down on his couch, psychiatrist-style. His weight dragged it across the floor, screetching and likely scratching it.

"What do you want," Austria said, slamming all of his fingers on all of the keys at once. He flipped his head violently in Prussia's direction, aware of how that was tossing his hair.

"Just some advice," Prussia said, holding his fingers up in a truce.

"No," Austria said. "No advice. Get out of my house." He put a significant pause between each word, trying to sound serious, but, in the end, it only made him look like a petulant teenager. He pushed the piano bench out and stood up.

Prussia sighed, nonplussed. "Why are you angry at me this time."

Austria glared at him. He pointed at the door.

Prussia left.

###

Germany was getting his notes together for an EU meeting when Prussia said to him, "I need advice."

He barely looked up. "What kind of advice?" Most of the papers were stapled, but they were spread out across the dining room table, while Germany's briefcase sat on the chair, looking mournfully empty.

"Romantic advice," Prussia said. He sounded serious, leaning against the doorframe of the room.

Germany looked up at him. "Prussia, you know I'm not good at this stuff. Why don't you ask France, or Austria?"

Prussia sighed dramatically. "I already did. They both turned me down. You don't have any clue what Austria's angry about this time, do you?"

Germany sighed. "He's Austria, so no." He was unsure whether or not to be offended that he was Prussia's third choice. "What do you need advice on?" The papers were more or less in order now.

"Canada," Prussia said, simply.

"Canada—America's brother?" Germany asked. The two more-or-less identical blondes appeared in his imagination, looking as intimidating as ever.

"Yeah," Prussia said. "I—I—have feelings for him."

"Oh," Germany said. "Well, I'll imagine America probably won't attack you to save his brother's honor. The two of them seem to be pretty independent."

Prussia shook his head. "That's not—that's not what I'm concerned about."

Germany went into the closet and took out his shoes. "After the next meeting, ask him out for drinks or something. It doesn't have to be a big deal."

"West—really?" Prussia asked. "You think—" he sighed. "That's not it, either."

Germany pressed one of his feet into the sole of the shoe. "What is it, then?"

"I—I took a vow of chastity in the middle ages." Prussia said.

"So?" Germany asked, slipping the rest of the shoe on.

"And—I've—I've never broken it," Prussia said.

Germany put the other shoe on. "Oh," he said. He walked over to his briefcase, closed it, and picked it up, not wanting to resolve any moral dilemmas for Prussia. "I see how that could be a problem," he said. And then he left.

###

France and Germany went out at the end of pretty much every meeting. Sometimes it was the only time they saw each other, since they were both always so busy. This meeting had been in Rome, so they sat on the side of a hill, Germany watching the sunlight recede over France's shoulder.

"So," he asked, "This thing about Prussia and Canada—what do you make of it?"

France shrugged and swirled his wine. "I don't know. I can't imagine it will work out well for your brother. Canada's never been interested in sleeping with anyone."

Part of dating France meant training oneself to not blush at every mention of sex. Germany failed this time. Still, the conversation had to continue. "Prussia hasn't been, either, so that surprised me."

"Well, he has that vow …" France trailed off.

"He's never mentioned it before, so I doubt he really cares." Germany sighed. Both of them looked mournfully at their plates. "Maybe it will be a good thing, though. Make them less lonely."

"I don't think either of them are particularly lonely," France said. "I mean they have their brothers, and friends and," he shrugged, and took a sip of his wine. "I just hope your brother is willing to have his heart broken."

"I hope so, too," Germany muttered

###

As the next world meeting drew closer, Prussia seemed to get more and more nervous by the day. He stayed up all night, pacing back and forth in his basement apartment. Several times he packed and repacked his bags, which surprised Germany. Prussia had always been a pack-the-morning-of type of person.

Generally, Germany had learned it was not a good thing to get involved in Prussia's emotions. Or his personal life. And especially, he predicted, his romantic life.

But after he found him reading the Trip Advisor reviews of the hotel they were staying in at breakfast, it had gone too far.

"What's up?" Germany asked, sitting down across from him.

"Huh?" Prussia said. He looked up from his phone.

"I mean, what's wrong?"

Prussia shook his head and stirred his cereal. "Nothing, West. Jesus Christ, I can't be interested in where were staying?"

Pointing out Prussia's unusual behavior would only be getting more involved. It was better to just leave it there.

###

"But, I mean, what am I going to wear?" Prussia asked. Germany had ventured down into the basement after he'd heard the temporary closet that held all of Prussia's clothes fall over. Now all of Prussia's clothes were in haphazard piles, dotting and zigzagging their way across the floor.

"Why does it matter?" Germany asked. "You've never cared about this before."

Prussia sighed and collapsed to the ground, defeated. Several clothes from surrounding piles covered him and accepted the black shirt he was currently wearing as one of their own. "It hasn't mattered before," he said. "This time—_he'll _be there."

Germany mentally ran through the list of countries and world leaders in his head—wait, Prussia wouldn't be interested in a _world leader_, would he?—until he came to the likely suspect. "Canada," Germany said.

Prussia nodded, his white hair bobbing above the black mass of the clothes.

"I don't even know why you got started on this," Germany said. "Canada's been to world meetings for decades now."

Prussia brushed off the sleeve of a long-sleeved tshirt that was covering his shoulder. "I know, but I never talked to him before the last meeting. I mean, I had him over that one time—for April Fool's, you know—and I should have known then," he sighed. "I've been thinking about him nonstop since them."

Germany nodded. Unrequited crushes were something he knew well. "It's not difficult, you know. Ask him out for drinks or something after the meeting, then tell him that you want to be more then friends." Germany paused, then, remembering his failed wartime relationship with North Italy, added, "And make sure he knows you're together before you propose."

Prussia sent him a strange look at that last piece of advice. "I guess. I just still don't know what to do about my vow," he said. "It's really unfortunate. I don't even want to do anything sexy with him."

Germany furrowed his brow. "Then what do you want—"

"I don't know? Just take him out on dates? Cuddle? Maybe kiss under the moonlight?"

Germany processed that information. Picturing his brother and Canada in any of those positions was weird, so he shut down that line of thinking. "I never took you for a romantic."

Prussia shrugged.

"I guess a part of any relationship is compromise," Germany said, remembering the fact that France still didn't let his dogs into his apartment despite being told repeatedly that they were all housetrained and, in fact, had not had an accident in over one hundred years.

"I—"

"But it might not work out anyway," Germany said.

"Or so France keeps telling me," Prussia said. Then, in an over-the-top French accent, he added, "Oh, Mathieu's never been interested in _loooove_."

Germany was about to brush off that statement, but then decided not to. "'Keeps?'" he asked.

Prussia rolled his eyes. "I hardly asked for it."

"Well, you did ask for his advice," Germany said.

"But, 'don't even try' is hardly good advice," Prussia said. "Especially because, I mean, what does he know?"

"It is, if what you're about to do is objectively stupid,"

Prussia sat up at that statement, "You think me asking out Canada is objectively stupid?"

"No, no," Germany said. "I mean, in principle. In principle, 'don't do the thing' is solid advice. I think you should ask him out. Just be prepared for him to say no."

"I know," Prussia said.

"And you have to respect—"

"I know," Prussia said. "What does France know about love, anyway? He thinks love and sex are the same thing."

Germany was simultaneously aware of the fact that he should leave the conversation and that he was blushing furiously.

###

In the years after Reunification, Prussia had slowly managed to wear down and wheedle the government into things it would have never done otherwise. One of them was the hotel reservations. Prussia had convinced the government that they needed not one hotel room, but two, and that those hotel rooms should always be connected by a door between them. Frequently, the only hotels that had such an arrangement were the really expensive ones or the little local ones, so they usually ended up in a nicer hotel than they would have otherwise.

Germany's feelings on this were mixed. On one hand, he was grateful for the amenities, impressed by Prussia's bargaining ability, and acknowledged fully that he was never capable of that back when he lived on his own. On the other hand, it was incredibly awkward to have Prussia in the adjacent room whenever he invited France over for some post-meeting sex. But, well, _c'est la vie_.

So, naturally, when Prussia came fiddling with the door between their rooms the night he was supposed to go out with Canada, Germany assumed the worst. He hadn't invited France over that night, for the express purpose of being free to offer Prussia a pint after Canada rejected him. But then, he'd been more tired than he was expecting (maybe it was the beginnings of that recession everyone kept telling him about?) so he'd laid down in bed and turned the TV onto a cooking show.

But that was contradicted when he saw the shit-eating grin on Prussia's face.

"How did it go?" Germany asked.

Prussia breathed out a sigh of relief and sat down in the overstuffed hotel armchair. "Oh my God—it was amazing. He's so much better—" he paused, "—better outside of work. And away from America, my God. He's so cute, and although he seems shy he's really outgoing when he's happy about something, and—"

Not wanting to hear about Canada's merits all night, Germany interrupted him. "That's wonderful," he said.

"Oh," Prussia said, sitting up. "And he told me he doesn't have a problem with the sex thing."

Germany sighed. "If you don't have a problem with breaking the vow, Prussia, it doesn't—"

"No," Prussia said. "That's not it." He paused. "I mean, Canada doesn't want to have sex with me either."

"Oh," Germany said. "So, then, you're just going to take him out on dates and kiss him in the moonlight?"

Prussia rolled his eyes.

"That's what you told me before," Germany said.

"I guess you're into grand romantic gestures, though, since you're dating _France_," Prussia said.

Germany had heard all of his arguments before, ever since the Wall fell and his brother was unceremoniously informed of his and France's relationship. Really though, France probably should have learned to say hello before trying to dirty-talk him through the phone. It was just inevitable that someone else was going to pick up—an advisor, the chancellor, his Communist brother who he had no contact with for thirty years …

"Oh, _Allleeeeemangeeeee_," Prussia said, in a horrible impression of a French accent. "Ravish me, _Alleeeeeemangeeeee_, take me and throw me—"

Germany rolled his eyes. "Why don't you go back to your own room?"

Prussia rolled off the chair, falling onto the floor. Then, he picked himself up and tried to play it like that was intentional.

He was halfway through opening the door when Germany told him, "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," Prussia said.

"And this stuff with Canada—it really does make you happy?" Germany asked.

"Yeah," Prussia said. He bent his head to one side in order to lean it against the doorframe. His eyes had a gleam in them which it would take Germany several more weeks in order to recognize as _lovesickness_. "I really, really am."

Germany nodded his approval. Generally speaking, things did not make Prussia happy. Conquering countries did, and going out with Spain and France did, but little else.

Maybe—if nothing else—Canada would calm him down.

"Good," Germany said. "If you're happy, then I'm happy."


End file.
